There is endless debate on what makes a story science fiction and what makes it fantasy, and I have no intention of entering those dangerous waters, but I am going to dabble my toes in a sheltered inlet and make a few observations about Martha Wells’ Books of the Raksura, represented so far by last year’s The Cloud Roads and the just-released sequel The Serpent Sea. Both are wonderful books, and I’ll be scooping up the third volume when that comes out.

The protagonist in these books is Moon, a being who can shift between groundling form (basically human) and a rather fierce and dangerous winged being. Moon is an outsider, belonging nowhere, but desperately wanting to belong, though unwilling to admit it. His story unfolds within a fascinating, and incredibly diverse and detailed story world, and his adventures therein are enthralling.

But aside from the great story telling, one aspect of these books that I find very appealing is the way that magic is “built in” to the story elements. For the most part, magic is not something to be learned and mastered, it just is. Magic allows Moon to shape-shift, but not because he’s particularly clever. The magic he uses is simply a biological trait of his species, the Raksura. Just as you and I learned to walk upright at an early age, the Raksura learn to walk upright and also to shape-shift. Almost everything else about them is due to biology, not magic, and Martha has soundly developed that biology—along with the biology and societies of several other species and cultures along the way.

As another example of built-in magic, there are “flying islands.” Yes, literally. And how utterly logical that a chunk of rock from a flying island could be used to levitate other things.

Which is a long way of saying I admire the logic of these books. In both science fiction and fantasy we’re asked to suspend our disbelief about the plausibility of one or more elements. The Books of the Raksura introduce those elements without the arm-waving and explanation that would be required in a science fiction novel, but the implications of those elements are worked out with great rigor. Having spent the first part of my career writing “hard” science fiction, I truly admire that. In thinking about these books I keep remembering Arthur C. Clarke’s very famous quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”—and I can’t help wondering if maybe the magic in these books is some highly advanced technology after all.

Kate Elliott has a terrific post up on the value of word-of-mouth publicity to a struggling writer. As an example of a book worth talking about, she uses Martha Well’s The Cloud Roads, which I read (and loved) only because Kate recommended it. Clear proof that word of mouth does work!

Kate concludes with:

One of the great things about the new world of social media is how easy it now is to talk about books with other book lovers. So don’t be shy: Talk up the books you love.

But go read the whole post–and check out The Cloud Roads!

Reading Martha Well’s terrific novel The Cloud Roads got me thinking about the archetype of the wounded man, because the hero of this book definitely qualifies, at least under my definition.

The “wounded man” isn’t physically wounded of course. Neither is he weak or incompetent and he can be wonderfully, overwhelmingly manly. But on some level he’s emotionally scarred from the mistreatment he’s received from life, and he’s got emotional issues, and usually he isn’t good at establishing relationships with men or women. So the inner plot is usually about our wounded hero learning to open up to others, in particular the love interest.

My thesis is that women tend to love the wounded man archetype, and men are much cooler toward it. Am I right? Am I wrong? Is it a generational thing? What do you think?

In my own work I’m going to point to two of my novels, Deception Well and Vast, which share two male characters named Lot and Urban. Lot sort of fits the definition of the wounded man. He has emotional issues (though he’s usually good at relationships, ha ha). Lot’s BFF, Urban, is emphatically not a wounded man. He’s cocky and confident. No self-esteem issues here.

My guess is that men prefer Urban’s character, and women tend to prefer Lot. Yes? No? Let me know what you think on the question of “the wounded man,” whether you’ve read the books or not. I always suspect I’m kind of “off” when it comes to being representative of my gender. I’d love to hear some opinions.

This is a terrific book. I thoroughly enjoyed it–and probably spent too much time reading it during an otherwise rather discouraging week.

The main reason I grabbed a sample for my Kindle is because Kate Elliott tweeted how much she liked the story world (again proving the power of word-of-mouth!). If I’d been on my own, I don’t know if I would have picked it up. Honestly, the cover doesn’t do much for me, and I’m fairly meh about the title–but the story’s what counts and the story is enthralling.

The protagonist is named Moon, and he’s a being who can shift between groundling form (basically human) and a rather fierce and dangerous winged being. The Cloud Roads is a fantasy. There is no time spent on trying to concoct an explanation for how or why this is possible. It’s simply magic–and this level of non-explanation works absolutely perfectly in the context of the story.

Moon is an outsider, belonging nowhere, but desperately wanting to belong, though unwilling to admit it. His adventures within an utterly fascinating and incredibly diverse and detailed story world are simply enthralling.

The Cloud Roads is the first book I read after finishing Bob Meyer’s fascinating civil war epic Duty, Honor, Country. I started three or four other books in between, but none caught my interest until The Cloud Roads, and then I was hooked from the first page. It’s not that anything truly compelling happened on page one, it’s just that Martha Wells has such a lively style of writing that I knew right away I was in for a good read. I’ve already grabbed a sample of another one of her books.